A Convenient Engagement

by Kimberly Bell

“Hannah, love. Time to turn over.”

  She mumbled something unintelligible into the mattress.

  He smiled against her shoulder, before squeezing her backside and giving it another playful slap. Her response was swallowed by the mattress, but she rolled over. When her eyes opened, they were cloudy with pleasure’s aftermath.

  She lay sprawled in unabashed satisfaction, limbs heavy with languor. He kissed her, ran a rough palm up her bicep, across her forearm, to tangle his fingers with hers on the pillow. He plied her with slow, sensual kisses until the need rose in her again and she responded with hunger.

  He retreated, holding until she opened her eyes.

  “Keep your hands here,” he said, pressing her palms into the pillows in explanation.

  Her brow furrowed, and he made it the first stop in his path down her body. Furrowed brow, the tip of her chin, the defined edge of her collarbone. He stopped at the gentle swells of her breasts, shaping them with his hands. He lavished attention with lips and teeth, drawing on her nipples until her cries were once again filling the warm air of their paradise.

  He placed a kiss next to the indent of her belly, and her hand came down to his hair. He stopped.

  “On the pillow, Hannah.”

  She frowned at him, but her arm returned to its position above her head.

  He moved farther down, placing kisses on the inside of her thigh. He tasted the honeyed juices that had escaped her core, nearly driving himself mad with the taste of her. He rested his forehead there a moment, giving himself time to regain his control. Hannah kept her hands against the pillow, but twitched her hips at him in protest. He chuckled low against her thigh and continued on.

  Anchoring his arms under her thighs, curving his hands back around to form on her hip bones, he looked up. She watched him with her lower lip clenched between her teeth. He dipped down, tongue and lips seeking the bud of flesh that collected all her nerve endings. When her hips surged up and her head fell back, he set to work.

  Gavan devoured her, driving her to swift frenzy with only his mouth. The struggle of her hips against his hand made demands for more, for the invasion they both craved. He took her as high as she could go, panting and calling out with need. He wanted her so close, the pleasure would drown out any pain she might feel.

  He rose up and positioned himself at her entrance. Just that barest contact with her heat blanked his vision. He took deep, stabilizing breaths. She lay stretched out below him, limbs spread in abandon. Their eyes found each other as he entered her with the torturously slow pace he forced himself to.

  * * *

  She felt him slide into her, felt her body’s channel stretch to accommodate him as he entered her. All of his muscles were taut; she could see the clenching of his jaw as he advanced one small motion at a time. Hannah’s body wanted to hurry him. There was more to this, and it demanded that he give it to her.

  Her mind barely held sway. Each moment was a new sensation, and she wanted to revel in them all. When his progress was halted by her body’s resistance, he stopped his inquest and brought a hand to the collection of nerves he had been pleasuring with his mouth.

  Every sensation was magnified by the feel of his rigid flesh inside her, stretching her. Soon she was spiraling back to the frenzy of before. When the barrier gave way, it was from her own involuntary response to the pleasure. She felt the sting, but Gavan was sunk fully into her, and it was like nothing he’d shown her before. He leaned over her, resting his weight on his left arm, and kissed her deeply as he continued the motions of his fingers.

  She bucked and writhed, and he didn’t stop her this time. He met her motions with a flexing of his own. She brought her hands up, burying them in his hair. She tried to consume him. She needed every part of them to sink into each other. He was inside her, and it wasn’t nearly close enough.

  He took over the rhythm of their joining and gave her what she was asking for. She felt his body come together with hers in a perfect motion that sent her crashing over the edge. It didn’t dissipate. She kept crashing around him, fueled by the motion of his thrusts. Behind it, something greater was building. Something both terrifying and tempting.

  “Gavan.” She cried his name, unsure.

  He claimed her mouth again and increased his thrusting. There was a violence to this new wave she rode, and when it crashed, her entire body seized in an explosion of sensation. Gavan’s body jerked violently as her spasms drove him over the edge of his own pleasure.

  It was long moments before anything but the sound and feel of their panting breaths registered for Hannah. She ran her fingers through his hair, and he hummed a sound of satisfaction against her ribs. She returned it with one of her own.

  He lifted his head and kissed her gently on the lips. Gently was good. Every nerve ending in her body was still recovering from overload. She didn’t think she could survive anything more. He withdrew from her, and it sent sparks of sensation twitching through her. He kissed her gently again and rolled to the side. His satisfied sprawl turned into a wince.

  “Are you all right?” she asked. She hoped the answer was yes. She wasn’t sure she could move to help him if something was wrong.

  “I think there might be a hole in my shoulder,” he said earnestly.

  It took Hannah’s pleasure-numb mind long moments to register what he said. When it did, she laughed. It was low in her throat and fueled by not a little exhaustion.

  He smiled, eyes shut and a look of extreme contentment on his face.

  She turned on her side, settling into the space next to his chest with his arm under her head. He twisted locks of her hair between his fingers as they lay in the heat of the greenhouse, listening to the gurgle of the artificial stream. She let her palm rest over his heart, feeling its heavy thud beat in concert with hers. He picked it up, placing his kiss in the center of her palm.

  He kept hold of it, placing kisses on the ends of her fingertips. The kisses turned to nibbling bites. He dragged her captured hand down, until it rested over his manhood, which thickened and came to life under her palm.

  “You can’t be serious.”

  He hummed a pleased sound as he moved her hand across the length of him, now as rigid as when they started.

  “I have a great deal of self-denial to make up for.” He cracked an eyelid to look at her. “Up you go.”

  Up you go? Her confusion didn’t last long. His uninjured arm hauled her up so she was splayed across his chest, her thighs straddling around his arousal. He shifted her position with hands on her thighs, and he was sunk to the hilt inside her.

  Hannah’s gasp met his low groan. He stretched his arms up behind his head and smiled at her lazily.

  “What do I do?”

  “Whatever you’d like.”

  Hannah frowned. He had been so demanding earlier. Admittedly, acquiescing to his requests had been well worth it. The restrictions he had placed on her movements had heightened her response in ways she hadn’t considered.

  She shifted her hips from side to side, testing the newness. She felt pressure in places she hadn’t experienced before. Following that through, she let her hips transcribe a circle, feeling him push against every part of her in succession. Oh yes, that was quite nice. She settled into a steady rhythm of that, and the rush of liquid heat she’d felt from his curving fingers returned.

  “God bless your curiosity,” Gavan gasped.

  On her next rotation, his heels dug in and he thrust upward.

  She cried out, putting her hands on his stomach for balance. Their eyes locked, and she repeated the motion. He thrust again, and pleasure spiked through her. She wanted more of that.

  Hannah changed her motion to a back-and-forth rocking that pulsed pleasure in the same way. Gavan gritted his teeth, and his hand came off the pillow. He found the bud of sensation easily, splayed and stretched as she was by their jo
ining. He circled it with her motions, and she started the steady climb up to pleasure’s peaks.

  His other hand came down, gripping her hip, taking control of the rhythm. He thrust up as she came forward and the maelstrom of sensation took her over. The wave crashed over her gently this time. A soothing satisfaction, rather than a screaming explosion. When it came, Gavan pulled her forward. He gripped her neck, kissing her, sliding her over him as he thrust upward with increasing fervor. He cried out against her neck when his own release took him.

  Sinking down in exhaustion, Hannah heard the erratic beating of his heart against her ear. She had done that to him. To them. She closed her eyes in satisfaction and let the sound lull her to sleep.

  Chapter 23

  Hannah woke in the predawn light to find the candles burned down to stubs. She and Gavan lay facing each other, his arms still around her. She felt him stir against her belly and looked up to see him awake and watching her. An unspoken urgency passed between them, and they came together with desperation.

  There was none of the languid pleasure seeking of before. They clawed and bit, grinding together in fevered need to leave some mark, some proof of their claim on each other. She sank her teeth into his uninjured shoulder as he thrust with powerful, jolting strokes. It was a violent passion that burnt itself out quickly, leaving them both exhausted.

  Hannah heard his light snores beside her as he fell back into unconsciousness. The lightening sky taunted her. She touched his lips with her own, and he tightened his hold on her in his sleep. A tear slipped from the corner of her eye. As gently as she could, she disentangled herself from his arms.

  She was slipping off the bed when his hand caught her wrist. Their eyes met and held. Hannah squeezed his hand in a plea. If he tried to stop her now, she wasn’t sure she could resist. Another tear fell. Gavan squeezed back and let go.

  His eyes were on her while she dressed. He lay naked in the bed, rumpled from their lovemaking, surrounded by a dream garden of tropical delights. Only a fool would walk away from him. Hannah was a thousand kinds of fool. She let herself memorize him, like this, to take with her. Then she turned and left.

  She made it back to her bedroom before she broke down. This was what it was like when he was still close. Still within reach. What would it be like if he died? Hannah understood her father better now, and she hated it. She had composed herself by the time Betsy came in to get her ready for the day, but the evidence was still there in the puffy, red skin of her face.

  “We’re still leaving, then?”

  Hannah nodded and almost burst into tears again. Betsy looked like she wanted to say something, but she changed her mind in favor of going to request hot water for a bath.

  In silence, they went through the motions of getting her ready for the day. Betsy didn’t comment on the marks leftover from the desperate joining in the gray morning light. She washed Hannah’s back, soaped and rinsed her hair, and wrapped her in a towel. They had just finished arranging her hair when Mathilda and Jane arrived in her room.

  In the mirror, she caught their silent question to Betsy and the small shake of the maid’s head in response. Did everyone think she should stay? Didn’t they realize how devastating it could become if she allowed herself to build a future with him?

  “I found these outside my door this morning.” Jane put a bundle of dresses on the bed, the ones Hannah had loaned to Fiona.

  Hannah stared at them blankly for a moment. “Leave them here. She should have them.”

  They went down for breakfast together. It was a solemn affair. Gavan wasn’t there, but she hadn’t expected him to be. They had said their good-bye this morning. She had hoped to see Fiona, though, and the younger girl’s absence hurt.

  “Magnus will be going with ye. He needs to shut down the London house, and ye willnae find a better protector from highwaymen and the like,” Ewan said. He watched her carefully, like everyone else.

  She nodded her assent, her mind still on Fiona. “Did you find Fiona yesterday?”

  “Aye,” he said. “Dinnae worry overmuch. She’ll come around eventually.”

  Hannah nodded again, but she was worried. She didn’t want to leave it like that between them. If this was the last time she would ever see Fiona, she wanted them to part as friends. Decision made, she stood up. “I’m going to see if I can find her while the carriages are being loaded.”

  Hannah left the dining room and all the prying eyes and headed outdoors toward the little cemetery on the hill.

  * * *

  Gavan leaned back against the headstone, a whiskey bottle in his hands. He wondered when he would break and take a swallow—it was when, not if—but for the moment, he just poured a bit onto the earth beneath him.

  “Seamus,” he whispered. “I need your help.”

  He bowed his head and spoke to the one parent who had never let him down.

  “I don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve any of the things you did for me. You loved me like your own son; raised me as your own.” Gavan wished he had paid more attention, wished he hadn’t been so angry. He might have learned how to be a better man.

  “How did you do it, when she was gone? You never let your family down. If you were—” He choked up, losing his voice for a moment. “If you were still alive, you’d be here now, and then I’d know what to do.”

  He sat there as the sun rose higher. Not much longer now, until she was gone for good. Away from his house, off his lands, out of his life. Forever. He took a swig of whiskey and put his head in his hands.

  “Gavan?”

  He didn’t imagine her voice. It held too much surprise to be a fantasy. He looked up. He hated the hope that filled him when it was really her.

  “Have you seen Fiona?” She hadn’t been looking for him. She hadn’t changed her mind.

  “She’s not here.”

  “I thought she would come to say good-bye.”

  “She’s a Dalreoch, Hannah.” He toasted her with the bottle, taking another swig. “Sticking around for the hard parts isn’t our specialty.”

  She turned to go but stopped at the edge of the graves. “You’re wrong, you know.”

  “Am I?”

  “Yes, you are. Morag’s a Dalreoch. Ewan’s half Dalreoch, and from what I gather it’s his good half. The whole clan, Dalreochs all. They seem to stick around plenty,” she said. “And you’re going to stay. You learned it late, but you did learn it.”

  “Hannah.” He stared at the grass at his feet, unwilling to look at her when he asked, “If I had been different, if I had been better—” The rustle of skirts made him look up, hoping, but she was nowhere to be seen. Gone.

  * * *

  The wheels jolted into motion, and Hannah couldn’t stop herself from watching out the window as they rolled away. When they left Castle Rhone’s tree-lined drive, a tear escaped Hannah’s control and rolled down her face.

  “This is ridiculous,” Jane said, before rapping her fist against the roof. “Driver! Stop the coach!”

  “Jane, dear, what on earth are you doing?” Lady Hawthorne asked as they lurched to a halt.

  “Someone has to stop this nonsense.” Jane threw open the door before the coachman could get to it, and she climbed down. She started trekking back toward the castle.

  Hannah scrambled after her, trying to keep up with her taller friend’s determined pace.

  “Jane, what has gotten into you?” Hannah asked, baffled.

  “Into me?” Jane practically yelled, turning on Hannah with alarming speed. “What has gotten into you? That man loves you, and you love him back.”

  “We love each other too much. That’s the problem.”

  Jane barked out a laugh. Her expression took on a wildness Hannah had never seen. “You found love, Hannah. Real love that builds you up and makes you strong. That’s not a problem; it’s the solution.”


  Hannah closed her eyes against the threatening tears. “You don’t understand.”

  “Yes, I do,” Jane said. “I know what’s out there for most of us. Empty words and disappointment and pain. I understand that very well. You have a chance at something I can only dream about, and you’re throwing it away.”

  “What about my chance?” Hannah said. “To see the world, to do as I please, to answer to no one? I want to be free.”

  “Who do you imagine you’re in danger of answering to, dear? Rhone?” Mathilda had left the carriage and joined them on the road. “That man would prostrate himself at your feet if you asked him to.”

  “You are free,” Jane agreed. “And marrying Rhone won’t change that a bit.”

  “I can’t.” Hannah whispered, panic building inside her. Real panic, not the façade of lost independence she’d been hiding behind. The panic that she hated to voice because she did love Rhone and it hurt her to doubt him. “I can’t stay here and build a life with him. What if we have children? What if something happens?”

  Jane considered Hannah. “You’re worried you’ll die, and Rhone will become like your father.”

  “Yes,” Hannah whispered, hating to say it. She should have faith in him. She should believe that he had the strength, but she couldn’t.

  Mathilda took Hannah’s hand in her own, squeezing comfort. “He might. It might happen exactly like that, but fear isn’t a good enough reason to walk away.”

  “Our children—”

  Jane cut her off, “Will never exist if you walk away from this. Have faith in him, Hannah. Look at the way he’s changed, knowing you for just a few weeks. Imagine what sort of man he might be if you gave him years.”

  A glimmer of hope sprang to life. He had changed; Hannah had seen it.

  “Do you think Morag, or Mr. Dalreoch, or Angus would let your children grow up lonely?” Mathilda asked. “Even if he goes back to the man he’s been, they’re not the sort to turn away from family.”

  Hannah felt the suffocating feeling subside and the glimmer grow. There were so many Dalreochs. Her children would have this big, chaotic, wonderful family. She could have it. She could have everything.